


keep talking and nobody explodes

by bacchusofficial



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Daniel Jacobi's Day Off, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, Phone Calls & Telephones, Pre-Canon, Road Trips, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-04-19 03:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14227701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchusofficial/pseuds/bacchusofficial
Summary: Kepler said, with a short, confident laugh, "I don't know if you've forgotten in your brand new virus-founded idiocracy, but Dr. Maxwell and I put together are pretty damn smart. Prettydamnsmart. I'm sure we can handle one job without you."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> based on an [anonymous prompt](http://bacchusofficial.tumblr.com/post/172656076455/yooo-your-kepcobi-fics-are-the-bomb-get-it). i'm Very excited about this one.

"You sure you're alright? You look a little..."

Jacobi sniffed, adjusted the strap on his bag, and looked at Maxwell with the red, droopy eyes of a man who had nothing left in life but a handful of tissues in his pocket and thousand milligrams of extra strength tylenol in his gut.

"...bad," Maxwell finished, taking a tactful step back, careful not to trip off the sidewalk into the street. They were waiting outside Jacobi's apartment.

"Huh," croaked Jacobi. "Funny. Now that you mention it, I  _feel_  a little  _'bad'._ " 

She didn't even tell him off for being pissy at her, just tilted her head sorta pityingly. He must look extra shitty, then.

He was about to assure her that he really was fine, it was just a little cold, when a familiar black cadillac pulled up. Front door opened, a man stepped out, leaned on the roof with one arm, took off his sunglasses, called out "Good morning, sunshines!"

Kepler was always in a viciously good mood before seven am. Jacobi was pretty sure it was out of spite.

Maxwell and Jacobi groaned together.

"What was that?" said Kepler with sharp eyes and sharp teeth.

"Good morning, sir," said Maxwell and Jacobi in quasi-enthusiastic unison. Or, it would've been unison, but Jacobi had a coughing fit halfway through "morning" and ended up doubled over with his hands on his knees and his eyes screwed shut.

"Yikes, dude," Maxwell murmured through her teeth. She reached out to pat his back, then thought better of it and instead wiped her hand on her pants. 

It's the thought that counts.

Jacobi heard the car door slam (Kepler was incapable of closing car doors without slamming them) and heavy, leisurely footsteps make their way up the sidewalk.

"Something wrong, Mr. Jacobi?"

"Nah," sniffed Jacobi, forcing himself to stand up, clutching the strap of his bag like it was the only thing keeping him on his feet (it was). "M'fine."

"Huh," said Kepler. Jacobi didn't like it, the way Kepler flicked his eyes across Jacobi's body like he was taking inventory, or the way he turned to Maxwell when he found something missing. "Maxwell?" he prompted.

"He's sick, sir."

"Is it the plague?"

Maxwell and Jacobi had a conversation with their eyes.

"No," she said.

"Then what's the problem?"

"No problem, sir," Jacobi forced out, holding in another coughing fit.

"That's the spirit," Kepler cheered, clapping Jacobi on the shoulder, which sent him lurching forward. Frowning, Kepler removed his hand. "...Anyway. Get in the car. If Maxwell can navigate properly this time, we may even stay on schedule."

A shared look, both Maxwell and Jacobi resigned to a long car ride and an even longer week. But that was Kepler, for you. They were used to it.

Maxwell tossed her bag in Kepler's trunk and slid into the backseat, which really wasn't fair. She knew Jacobi wasn't at his best and had no chance of beating her in the race to not have to sit beside Kepler for ten hours and endure the full force of his company.

God, Jacobi couldn't even take three steps in a straight line. He swallowed hard, feeling sweat drip down his forehead, and caught himself with one hand above the passenger door, eyes closed, teeth gritted.

The backseat window rolled down, and Maxwell poked her head out, eyebrows knitted. "You sure you're okay, Daniel?"

"He's fine," waved Kepler, though he hadn't gotten in the car yet, hovering beside Jacobi. Jacobi rested his forehead on the cool glass window, head tilted to look at Kepler. Looking directly at Kepler was a lot to handle on the best days, but right now it made Jacobi dizzy. It was probably the tylenol, or the bright sun rising just behind Kepler's head.

"You're fine, aren't you, Jacobi?" It was more of an assurance than a question, a  _You are fine, and you are going to get in the car_.

"Uh-huh," said Jacobi, and then he threw up on Kepler's shoes.

Kepler blinked. Looked down. Looked at Jacobi.

“I see,” said Kepler. No expression. Toed off his shoes and socks. Left them on the blacktop. Went around to the trunk.

Jacobi watched, mortified.

Maxwell laughed uncontrollably from the backseat, which, okay, yeah, Jacobi would be laughing too if she were in his position, but that didn't make it any better. Or funnier. Which, nothing about this was funny.

Kepler returned, wearing new shoes. His boots. His killin' folks boots. Face still carved of granite.

"Sir, I'm—I'm  _so_  sorry." Man, his apology would be so much more effective if Maxwell wasn't shrieking like a goddamn banshee.

Kepler picked up Jacobi's bag where, in his fit of nausea, Jacobi'd dropped it on the sidewalk by the car. Then Kepler picked up Jacobi. Like a baby.

"AH what—what the  _hell_ , sir—"

"How am I supposed to trust you to walk back to your apartment," Kepler reasoned, carrying Jacobi to the door of his building, "If you can't even be trusted to walk a straight line?"

"Wh—" Jacobi paused as another dizzy spell hit him and he had to try very hard not to throw up again. He hated throwing up. It was why he didn't believe in god. "Why do I needa go back to... m'apartment?"

"You're under quarantine. Indefinitely."

Jacobi could still hear Maxwell laughing when Kepler pushed the elevator button, only relieved when the doors slid shut and they began their ascent.

"You can put me down."  _Please put me down_.

No response.

It was fucking ridiculous, how easy it was for Kepler to carry him like this. Jacobi wasn't tall (the shortest of the three of them, to Maxwell's sinister delight), but he was broad-shouldered and stocky and a grown ass man, thank you very much, and if all the bones in his body weren't currently made of wet sand then his elbows would have a thing or two to say to Kepler's ribs.

The elevator opened, not on Jacobi's floor. The woman took one look at them, smiled uncomfortably, and let the doors close on them.

Outside Jacobi's door, Kepler requested, "Keys?"

"S'open," Jacobi muttered.

"You were going to leave your door unlocked for ten days."

"Hey, it's my fucking house—what are you  _doing_ , stop fiddling with the doorknob, it's not gonna open if you—just  _put me down!_ "

Jacobi half-fell, half-wrestled to the ground (gracefully on his feet, of course) and fumbled until he got his apartment open.

Wait a second.

He turned around. "Wait a second."

Kepler raised an eyebrow, pushed Jacobi into the apartment, followed, was still blocked.

"You're leaving without me?"

"Oh, come on. It took you that long to do the math? I'd've hoped you got the hint when you vomited on my—"

In a smaller voice, Jacobi said, "You're leaving without me?"

Kepler's mouth twitched. "Get ahold of yourself, Jacobi. Take some tylenol. See you when we get back. And, for God's sake, lock your damn door." He turned.

"Wait, is this about the shoes?"

Tsk. "No, it's not about the—"

"'Cause I can buy you new ones—"

" _Jacobi_. Stop. Talking. Now."

Jacobi swallowed, heart pounding with panic. Kepler couldn't leave him here. What was Jacobi gonna do all by himself? What was  _Maxwell_  gonna do all by herself?

"We'll be better off with you out of the way," said Kepler.

"But—"

"I'm sorry, I must've misheard. I know you weren't about to  _talk back to your Superior OFFICER."_

There was a difference between Kepler’s Colonel Voices. One, while it sounded harsh, was ignorable without consequence. That was the one he used when he was losing at bickering, and knew it. 

The second required immediate, unquestioning obedience. Or there would be Consequence.

That was the one he used on Jacobi right now.

So that was it, then. "No, sir," Jacobi said, gut twisted in ways that had nothing to do with his sickness. "Of course not, sir."

"Of course not." Harsh consonants hitting like mosquito bites, making Jacobi itch and want to swat them away, want to spray them with poison. "See you when we get back, Mr. Jacobi."

One foot out the door.

"Sir—"

Heel turn. "Yes?"

"What—what about the bomb? How are you gonna—"

Short laugh. "I don't know if you've forgotten in your brand new virus-founded idiocracy, but Dr. Maxwell and I put together are pretty damn smart. Pretty  _damn_  smart. I'm sure we can handle one job without you."

Kepler left. For real this time. Jacobi watched him through his peep hole, then through the window as, after making Maxwell get in the passenger seat, he drove them away.

He left the shoes on the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, folks! tune in soon for: what goes wrong!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im living for writing this right now

Being sick meant it was impossible for Jacobi to sleep in his bed. The sheets would get drenched in sweat and tangled in his armpits, and it would be too hot, and he'd get lost in the blankets or knock things off his nightstand, and—

Long story short, impossible.

He brushed his teeth, drank a glass of water, and passed out on the couch with a blanket pulled up to his chin. And there he hibernated until, Christ-like, on the third day he was reborn, revitalized with smooth skin and bright eyes, ready to take on anything the world had to offer!

Just kidding. After six hours of fitful napping, he was tugged back to consciousness by an awful sound on the coffee table.

Face-down on the couch, Jacobi groped blindly for his cell phone, held it to his ear.

"What?" he asked.

"Jacobi, you have to do something." Maxwell sounded like she was going crazy. Pepe Silvia crazy. "I can't—I just can't deal with this. How do you  _do_ it? How did you manage for  _years_  like this?"

Her words were like a connect-the-dots that Jacobi, in his current state, could barely read the numbers on. There was a long pause. He sniffed. Fuck, he should've brought his tissues in from the bathroom before he made his cocoon.

"Uh," he said. "What?"

" _Mr. Jacobi, have I ever told you about the time I singlehandedly stopped a woman at the Smithsonian from stealing the Hope Diamond using only a rubber band, a half-eaten rice krispy treat, and a pair of sapphire earrings_?" asked Maxwell in a decent approximation of Kepler's voice.

Later, Jacobi would blame it on the fever that he mumbled, absently, adjusting his position on the couch, “I thought it was emerald earrings, sir.“

"Stop dicking around this is serious, Jacobi, I can't take any more, I need you to—oh, Christ, he's coming back.”

Some bangs on the other end, and a voice, familiar but muffled, in the background. "Who you talking to?"

"Just Jacobi, sir," said Maxwell, quickly. "Just checking on him."

"Well, stop. He needs to rest."

"Aw, he does care," Jacobi mumbled into his couch pillow, closing his eyes and listening to the buzz of their voices. It was so unfair. He'd been dreading that trip for two weeks, and now he wasn't even there to complain about it. Typical.

"...cobi? Jacobi.  _Jacobi_."

That was Kepler's voice, now directly into the phone. Jacobi coughed, then tried to sit up.

"Huh?" he winced. "What-what do you want?"

"First of all, never address me as  _huh_  again, or I'll see that your lab stops receiving cobalt shipments for a calendar year."

"Oh," Jacobi blinked. He wished Kepler would get to the point so Jacobi could go back to his hell nap. "What about second of all?"

In his head, he could see the tight set of Kepler's jaw, the slight tic as he counted to three in his head. "I'm so glad you asked," Kepler said. "I would've forgotten to tell you."

"You're wel—"

"No more answering Maxwell's phone calls."

"What?"

"If you're not at your best when we get back, we're going to have another talk about personal health." Maxwell said something Jacobi couldn't hear, and Kepler answered, "I don't know what you're laughing at, Dr. Maxwell, you would be joining us." Radio silence. Then, "From now on, Jacobi, you only answer calls from one person. Care to guess who?"

"Rachel Young."

The knowledge that there were over a hundred miles between them made Jacobi bold, even as he hid under his blanket, like that would protect him from Kepler's lecture-of-wrath that lasted (Jacobi watched the time on his phone tick up) four minutes and thirty-four seconds.

At last, after a deep exhale, Kepler finished. "No, Jacobi. Me. You are only to answer my calls from now on. No one else. Not Maxwell, not your parents, not Papa Johns, not the goddamn tzar of Russia. Understood?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Can I go? I'm kinda busy. You know. Dying." For effect, Jacobi coughed, which turned into an actual fit of coughing that made him regret the dramatics.

When he finally stopped, Kepler had already hung up.

 

 

"Well, now that's done." Kepler tossed Maxwell her phone and started the car. "Ready to hit the road?"

He was being too happy again. Not in his regular, aggressive happy, more like a mask of that with the eyes cut out. Eyes like steel, like an industrial fire.

Maxwell had never been this close to that fire for so long without a Jacobi-shaped buffer. She didn't know what to do about it.

Watching him out of the corner of his eye, she buckled her seatbelt. They were at the gas station, which was why she'd been able to send out an SOS to Jacobi. An SOS which had backfired completely, but an SOS nonetheless.

"Sir, is—" She took a deep breath, forced up some courage. "Is something wrong?"

Before turning onto the highway, Kepler put his sunglasses on. "Wrong?" he asked. "Why would anything be wrong?"

"It's just." The sunglasses, the forced smile, the five minute long rant about Rachel Young. These were things usually saved for particularly sensitive missions. Or company dinners. "You've been a little tense today."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Dr. Maxwell," Kepler smiled.  _Dr_. Maxwell. Another sign.

"Is it Jacobi?"

"Why would it be Jacobi?"

"You said that pretty fast for someone not worried about Jacobi."

"The speed at which I speak is none of your concern, Maxwell."

If Jacobi was here, Maxwell and he would share a look, and, later, in their hotel room while Kepler was taking a shower, would giggle and repeat Kepler's words in increasingly exaggerated imitations of Kepler's slow, midwest drawl. _The... speed... at... which... I... s p e a k. . ._

But Jacobi wasn't here.

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

"And for the record," Kepler went on, speeding past a red prius, "I'm not worried."

"There's nothing wrong with being worried."

"I  _just_  said—"

"And it's not exactly difficult to worry about Jacobi."

" _Maxwell_."

Her mouth clicked shut. 

"I will remind you that this is not a road trip, this is not an opportunity for pseudo-meaningful moments, and I am not your friend. I am your boss, and we are doing a job. Conversation will be limited to the labels of chat, small talk, and/or silence. Any and all questions—god forbid you have to ask—will be related strictly to the mission's success. Do you need any clarification?" 

Maxwell shifted so she was looking out the passenger window, fingers drumming nervously around the door lock. He would not say that sort of thing to Jacobi. Or, he would, but he would mean it less, and Jacobi would feel comfortable enough to shoot back some comment that would result in a two hour long banter that'd make the long ride more bearable.

But, again, Jacobi wasn't here, and Kepler and Maxwell's relationship didn't work like that. She didn't know if it was because they hadn't known each other as long, or because Jacobi had already taken up the only cubby hole Kepler had allotted for anything resembling affection (love, she would say, but that was a complicated word for all of them, one that never sat right on the tongue or the frontal lobe), or maybe they just couldn't understand each other. God knew Maxwell couldn't wrap her head around Kepler, and he made little effort in understanding her, evidenced by his constant cutting off her sentences with "To the point, Maxwell."

"Clear, sir," she said. " _Quite_  clear." 

She chose the option labeled silence. 

 

 

The silence option was an awful and a perfect choice. Perfect because Kepler got annoyed. 

Awful, because Kepler got annoyed. 

Fast forward to the hotel. Kepler barricaded himself in the bathroom, which left Maxwell to sit at the tiny table by the window and play chess on her phone. She hated chess. It had been more interesting to write the program (none of the ones in the app store were worth a shit, so she’d made her own. About four percent of her income came from sales).

Eventually, Kepler appeared, damp and in a much better mood. Maybe he'd jerked off in the shower. That helped some people. Ugh, Maxwell instantly regretted that thought. It was like her own brain was filling in for Jacobi’s in his absence. 

She really needed to stop thinking about Jacobi not being there. It was starting to give her a migraine. 

"Chess?" Kepler noted. "You play?"

Oh, no. 

"Umm," said Maxwell. "Not—not really, no."

"Come on, one game."

Reluctantly, Maxwell set up her phone for 1v1. 

Another fast forward. Four games. Four stalemates. A steadily rising atmosphere of competition that would turn deadly at the strike of a match, but that at the same time was kind of nice, kind of exciting. They didn't do this kind of thing.

They stared at each other over the board, cleared save for two tiny pixelated kings.

"One more?" said Kepler.

Maxwell caught a glimpse of the hotel clock and winced. "What time did you say we start tomorrow?"

"Ah, come on, be a little cavalier, Jaco—"

He stopped, realizing what he'd almost done. What he _had_ done. For the first time all day (all week, all his life), he didn't know what to say. 

Maxwell's eyes were wide as dinner plates.

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

They both leapt to their feet. 

"Well, goodnight, sir!" she announced, kicking her shoes off and speeding to one of the beds.

"Get some rest, Dr. Maxwell," said Kepler, having teleported himself beneath the duvet of the other bed.

She put her glasses on the nightstand and he clicked off the lamp.

Darkness. 

This week was already too long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! your comments make me even more stoked about writing this, and so many kind words fill my heart with little butterflies <3 yall rock


	3. Chapter 3

_Knock knock_.

Jacobi grumbled, rolling onto his other side.

_Knock Knock_.

"No," Jacobi whispered into the couch, frowning, petulant.

_KNOCK KNOCK_.

"Okay, _okay_ , Jesus Christ," he snapped, throwing the blanket off and storming to his feet, only to pause halfway to the door and lean briefly on the wall when all the blood came rushing to his head and he almost passed out.

He managed to open the door.

"I assume you keep all your guests waiting like that?" Rachel Young snorted.

Jacobi closed the door. She jammed her high-heeled foot in the frame before it shut, which must've hurt, but if it did, her face didn't show it. She wrinkled her nose in annoyance, not pain.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"How do you—why are you here?"

Somehow, she was inside his apartment, waltzing into the kitchen and setting a bag on the counter. "Checking on you, of course. Warren told me his pet was sick, and it's only polite to check up on things like that for people out of town."

Jacobi didn't like this. He didn't like Young being here in his home, he didn't like the way she spoke, the way her words clipped around each other like paper cuts, he didn't like that his clothes had the stale feeling of having been slept in all day, he didn't like that his nose was running and that he had a temperature of a million degrees, and he, especially, didn't like that instead of snapping at Young and demanding she leave his house, the thing that came out of his mouth was, "Colonel Kepler sent you here?" Hopeful, guilty, suspicious.

Mostly suspicious.

Young laughed with her specific brand of charm, which left a too-sweet taste in the back of Jacobi's throat. "You know, you two are so adorable. Of _course_ he did. In what universe wouldn't he?"

"This one. The one we're in. Right now."

"Adorable," Young repeated, and started rooting around in the bag she'd set on the counter. "So I brought cough drops and tea, but you should eat the soup first. Warren mentioned you probably hadn't eaten anything today." She took a container out of the bag and set it on the counter. "How high is your fever?"

Her speech was so analytical, even when she appeared to be helping—actually, what the fuck was this?

"What the fuck is this?" he asked.

She clicked her tongue. "I  _told_  you, Daniel. Warren sent me to check on you, so I did."

"Why would he send you?" Or anyone? Didn't Kepler just say he didn't want Jacobi to be distracted? Also, what the fuck. This had to be a fever dream. Jacobi felt his forehead.

"Warren and I have been working together a long time," said Young, like she was talking to a baby whose nap time was overdue. "We owe each other favors. That's kind of our thing."

"...Right. Listen, as much as I appreciate you coming here and doing... whatever it is you're doing, I actually don't appreciate it, and I need you to go away now—"

"He and I are pretty close, you know," Young said, conversationally, now going through Jacobi's kitchen drawers. His eye started to twitch.

"That's fascinating."

"Mhm!" she chirped. She punctuated her next words by closing Jacobi's silverware drawer. "We fuck sometimes on the weekends."

Jacobi had always assumed that God, if there was a God, had abandoned him several decades ago, some time in middle school, but he'd been wrong this whole time. God abandoned him right there, right at that moment, at age thirty, when Rachel Young waltzed into his kitchen and talked about fucking Warren Kepler like she was talking about the weather forecast.

He blinked, like a dog sprayed with a water bottle. She raised her eyebrows at him, but there was something evil in her expression, something like a knife. Ah, so this was a power move. Jacobi should've known. Everything she did was a power move. 

"What?" she asked. "Don't you as well?"

Power Move. 

Jacobi briefly rubbed his eyes. "No," he said, with as little emotion as he could muster, which incidentally was as much passive aggression as he could muster. "Oddly enough, I don't f—have relations with my boss _‘on weekends sometimes’_.” 

" _Really_." Badly feigned shock, one hand on hip, red mouth slightly open. Classic. "Wow. I'd just always assumed—"

"Well." Jacobi crossed his arms, giving her a dry smile, what he liked to call his _Leave My Home_  smile. "You know what they say about the word assume."

"God, and you aren't even _lying_."

"It makes an—"

"That may just be the saddest goddamn thing I've ever heard about you, Daniel. And you're a sad person, in general."

"You know, I'm just so  _glad_  that you broke into my home so you could go through my things, intrude on my personal life, and tell me about how sad I am. This has been so refreshing. In fact, I think I'm cured!" His voice cracked on the exclamation point, and he started coughing again. 

She stared at him until he was finished. 

"He's really strong, you know," she said. No. No, this was not happening, this was not a thing. This was a construct of Jacobi's sickness. "You'd think it from looking at him—" Laugh. "I mean,  _look_  at him. The arms on that man." Sigh. "But he's even stronger than he looks. And the things he says... God, have you  _heard_  his voice?"

"WowWouldYouLookAtTheTime!" Jacobi croaked. "Shouldn't you be heading out?"

This time, her smile (still evil, of course) was sly, triumphant. Whatever it was she'd wanted from him, she'd gotten. Which was why she said, "Oh, come on, Daniel, there's no need to act jealous," breezed past him, and then, on her way out, said, "I'll tell Warren you said hello. Get well soon!" 

_Click_.

Jacobi fell face first on the couch and screamed, punched the cushions with all his force, made himself go still when it felt like he was going to throw up again. Took deep breaths. Counted his rage on his knuckles, slowly unclenched his fists. Deep breaths. 

He didn't understand how someone could do something like that. Come here, fuck with his head, then smile like they were great friends and leave like the sun shone out of her—

Deep breaths. Tuck your knees to your chest. Wrap one arm around them. 

A little sob, which Jacobi stopped furiously by biting down on one of his knuckles. 

It was so fucking uncool. She knew, she _knew_ —

Well that meant everyone knew, didn't it? Knew how pathetic Jacobi was, padding at Kepler's heels like a dog ( _his pet_ , she'd called him when she'd first walked in, she thought she was so damn clever), knowing that his brand of veneration was one of a kind, could never be returned, least of all by someone like Kepler, and yet Jacobi went along anyway, because maybe it was enough to just be there.

And now, Jacobi wasn't even there.

They didn't really need him. Kepler didn't really need him. He kept him along for fun, an interesting sidekick that could and would be disposed of if anything truly important ever came along. 

No, Jacobi decided, pouring the soup out in the sink, petty vengeance. Neither one of them needed him. Kepler was... Kepler, and Maxwell was so goddamn smart she could have the moon if she wanted it, she could have the whole solar system, the universe, it would gladly expose its wrists for the handcuffs and bend its neck for the guillotine if that's what Maxwell asked. 

They didn't need him. That's why they'd left him behind. 

"Stupid mission," he muttered, trudging back to his couch, draping his blanket over his shoulders. "Not like I wanted to go, anyway. Not like they care that I'm gone. This is great. I love being here alone. Just like the good old days." You know, back when he was an alcoholic living on government money and peanut butter. Ah, the good old days.

"They don't need you," he reminded himself, settling into the couch, reaching for the remote.

Beside the remote, his phone lit up with a text. Maxwell. 

_»jacobi, please text back. I need you._

Jacobi spent a solid thirty seconds clutching the phone to his chest, smiling and willing himself not to cry like a dumbass, before he texted her back. 

_what's up ?_

_»nothing, I just have to talk to you. not talking to you anymore would basically be a public health threat at this point._

_won't u get like court-martialed and strung by ur toes by the colonel?_

_»last I checked he didn't say anything about texts, so..._

_sneaky!_

_» ;-) how are you feeling?_

_well rachel young just visited my appt_

_»did you throw up on her shoes, too?_

_TOO. SOON. and not funny !! so not funny_

_»you're right it's Hilarious. you will never live this down. I’ll make sure of it._

_yeah yeah you're a real comedian. so how are things going?_

_»oh my god. you'll never guess what kepler said yesterday._

As he waited for her to type her story, watching the little gray dots float happily in the corner of his screen, Jacobi realized his cheeks hurt, and that it wasn't because he'd been sleeping on a couch for the better part of a day and a half, but because he was smiling from ear to ear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry(ish) it got a little sad there, i hope it lightened itself up! and if this chapter didn't, i hope the next couple will. on an unrelated note, i love rachel young with all my bisexual heart.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and sticking with me, and thanks to yall in the comments for being amazing! your support really means a lot and helps me get those brain juices flowin


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one i like to call: warren kepler is a bad bad man [saxophone solo]

The only thing less pleasant than listening to Kepler talk on the phone for twenty minutes was only being able to hear it through the sliding doors of a hotel balcony, and the only thing less pleasant than that was hearing it before 8:00am.

Maxwell laid on her back, hands folded on her stomach, and watched Kepler's eyebrows sink lower and lower on his forehead as his conversation went on. His voice had the hollow, distant, wobbly quality only half an inch of glass could provide. "No... Sorry,  _what_  did you do?... That is  _not_  what I asked for. ...No, it isn't. ...No, it isn’t. I won't play this game. ...Yes, how clever of you."

A distinct pause. Maxwell saw the muscles in Kepler's back tense, saw his hand twitch. She found herself tilting her head toward the balcony; she hadn't realized how closely she'd been eavesdropping until then. Of course, it wasn't like there was anything else for her to do.

Kepler said, in a low voice that nevertheless sent an unpleasant vibration up Maxwell’s spine, even through the glass, "That is none of your concern, and, as you damn well know,  _Miss Young,_  none of your business. Goodbye."

He put his phone in his pocket and came back into the hotel room. Maxwell shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She liked to think she was good at pretending to be asleep. It had saved her from a lot of unwarranted social interaction.

"Maxwell."

Well.  _Someone_  was in a bad mood. If only Rachel would wait until  _after_  Maxwell’s extended personal time with Kepler to piss him off.

Maxwell opened her eyes innocently. Kepler stood over her, unimpressed.

"Get ready. We're going to survey the estate grounds today. I'll be back in ten minutes to debrief. We will be out the door in no less than twenty-five.”

He didn't ask if she understood, but automatically Maxwell sat up and said, "Yes, sir," because he was using the tone of voice that implied such things were required. 

The scar on his upper lip twitched, and he left the room.

She waited thirty seconds, just to be safe, then took her phone off the nightstand. No new messages. It was likely that Jacobi had fallen asleep after they'd said goodnight, and now continued that sleep, and would continue that sleep until the afternoon.

She knew he was fine. Of course he was. After all, if something was wrong, Jacobi would be complaining about it to her. Still, she could feel the beginnings of a dread-like stress building in her gut. 

Maxwell groaned, and fell face-first onto her pillow. Hotel pillows—at least, the ones at the kind of hotel Kepler usually booked—were a specific kind of comfortable, the kind that circled right back around to uncomfortable.  _Okay_ , she told herself.  _Deep breaths_ , she told herself.  _You’re gonna make it_ , she told herself.

She swung herself out of bed, stuck on her glasses, and got ready for the day. 

As promised, Kepler returned at ten minutes to the millisecond. Maxwell didn’t actively like many things about Kepler, but she did appreciate his punctuality, and his schedules. In terms of time, at least, he was predictable. She liked that in people, and things.

He seemed to be in a better mood than he had after the phone call, but it may just be that he's compartmentalized all emotions other than rigid professionalism.

"So here's what I need you to do," said Kepler. They sat at the table by the window, which was really too small for two people to sit at together, and to make things worse it was obvious they were both purposely not thinking about the night before, the last time they'd sat at this table.

"Obviously, Jacobi's not here, so in his absence, I'll be assigning you most of his regular tasks. Which won't be a problem for you." 

A threat, not a compliment.

“Particularly today, with the survey. You'll be acting in Jacobi's place. You can complete your own tasks when we get back this evening."

A given. Maxwell almost never went on surveys or stakeouts; that was something Kepler and Jacobi did together, their Thing. Now, without him, Kepler needed someone else to hand him things and take notes and mutter under their breath. Which meant that Maxwell's own "survey," aka an in-depth analysis (hacking project) of their target building's security and cyber systems, which usually took upwards of five hours depending on how overconfident the target was in their ability to handle themselves without advanced firewalls, would have to wait until after the physical survey, which she was being dragged along for.

Maxwell was going to need A Lot of coffee.

Kepler was saying something like: "Blah blah rental car blah blah perimeter blah blah blah," outlining the same gameplan he always had for these situations (it was really routine, this job. They almost didn't need to meet at all, except this was Warren Kepler they were dealing with). He eventually finished with, "Ready to go?"

Around a yawn, Maxwell said, "Yeah."

Frown. "I'm going to try that one more time. Ready to go, Dr. Maxwell?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Better." Kepler stood, grabbing his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. He, like Maxwell, wore dark, nondescript clothes, just like they did in the movies. Maxwell sometimes wondered which string the Fates had cut to make her life so ridiculous. Making a show of looking at his watch, Kepler said, grandly, "And would you look at that, forty seconds to spare. Ten points to Gryffindor."

"Slytherin," Maxwell muttered. His eyebrows were briefly affected by the news—it was as close to solidarity as they had ever been. 

"Grab the blueprints, and let's go."

Maxwell stood automatically, then frowned. "Ah..." she said. "Blueprints?"

A glint in Kepler's eye, always a bad omen. "Yes, Maxwell. The blueprints to the building we are to infiltrate in four days. The ones we will require to conduct today’s survey, as well as to continue on with this job in any capacity whatsoever. Those blueprints."

"You mean," said Maxwell. "The ones Jacobi usually gets. The ones Jacobi had.  _Those_ blueprints."

They stared at each other in complete silence until Kepler took a deep, sharp breath through his nose and Maxwell pushed up her sleeves and, at the same time, they each started talking with the intense volume of two people who on principle had already made up their minds to win an argument before it even started. 

“I am going to ask you _one more time_ where the blueprints are, and if—“

“You never told me it was my job to get the blueprints, so I don’t understand how you can reasonably expect me to be responsible for—“

“—I don’t think I need to remind you how critical my opinion of your job performance is in relation to your standing within this organization—“

“—moreover, you were the one who carried him and his stuff back into his apartment, so, technically, if we’re on the subject of pointing fingers, shouldn’t you, champion of observation as you tend to be, have noticed—“

“— _I beg your pardon?”_

“I’m just saying, sir, if you wanted the blueprints, shouldn’t you have grabbed them when you—” 

“ _Enough.”_

Maxwell chewed nervously on her lip. Kepler’s hands were clenched comfortably into fists at his sides. 

“If you think you are going to turn this grotesque show of incompetency around on me, Dr. Maxwell, you are sadly mistaken. As a member of this team, it is an integral part of your job to communicate with other members, specifically those whose tasks in their absence you have adopted. Surely, with your by all accounts spectacular, brilliant, out-of-this-world mind, you were aware that the blueprints were integral to our mission. Correct?”

Oh, no. Oh, abso _lutely_ not. 

“Uh,” said Maxwell. “No, actually, _sir._ Because, _first_ of all. Yesterday, you made it _quite clear_ that I am _not_ , under _any circumstances_ , to communicate with the ‘absent’ members of this ‘ _team’_ , and if that, as you just said, is such an _integral part of my job,_ it begs the question of how you could possibly expect me to perform at my best given you have removed my ability to do so. _Secondly._ ” And here, Maxwell briefly closed her eyes and collected herself, her words. Opened her eyes. 

“ _Secondly_. As a person, a living, breathing, functioning person alive on this _planet_ , I will beg _your_ pardon if you expect me to consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that tone.” 

She exhaled, as though, despite her flurry of words, she’d been holding her breath for a very long time.

Kepler looked her up and down. It was possibly the most she’d ever said to him at one time, and he hadn’t yet learned how to adapt so that he was back on the high ground. 

He said, faux-neutrally, “Tone?”

“Yes, _tone_ ,” she bit. “You know. The one you use on him.” _The one you use to fold him back up and put him in your pocket_. 

“The one. I use. On. Him.” She could hit him. Oh, she could _really_ hit him. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” 

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Sir. The one you use to make him feel the size of a pinball so he’ll go along with whatever you say. That won’t work with me. I won’t allow it.”

“You. Won’t. Allow it.”

“ _No, because I’m not—“_

A brief smile, and Maxwell knew she’d lost. 

“Not what, Dr. Maxwell?”

She could say what she’d almost said, say, _I’m not the one who’s in love with you._ (But Jacobi wasn’t in love with Kepler. It was something worse.)

Maxwell said, “I’m not Jacobi.” _So stop treating me like I am._

Kepler tilted his head like he was thinking hard, but his sharp little smile gave nothing away, and, when he did speak, it was with the impression he was giving her the win out of the kindness of his heart; indulging her, nothing more. 

“What are you going to do about the blueprints?” 

Maxwell would _very much_ like to hit him. She was proud of herself for not, and for keeping her tone even and calm. “The blueprints will not be a problem, _sir_ ,” she said. “I can get you the blueprints just fine, _sir.”_

“Oh?” asked Kepler. “And how will you do that?” 

“Give me the address and three minutes on my laptop.”

Kepler considered. “Can you do it in the car on the way?”

“Why. Certainly.”

A smile like a panther. “See, Maxwell? That wasn’t so bad. I knew I could count on your resourcefulness.” As he walked past her, his large hand rested briefly on her shoulder and squeezed. He sometimes did the same thing to the back of Jacobi’s neck. It made her a little sick to her stomach. “Let’s go.” 

She followed him. As he closed the door, he looked at his watch and clicked his tongue, tossing over his shoulder as he led them down the hall, “Shame. Four minutes behind schedule. Better keep up, Maxwell.”

 

As soon as they arrived and Maxwell had the blueprints open on her laptop, Kepler’s phone buzzed on the console and, after looking at it, he began to laugh his slow, building laugh, which lasted ten whole seconds before he deigned to show Maxwell what was so funny.

Text from: Jacobi

_uh u know u left the blueprints here, right?_

Maxwell did not completely unclench her jaw until very early the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, guys ! your kudos and comments are really inspiring to me, it makes my heart so warm to know that people enjoy this. i know i certainly am.
> 
> also, for anyone interested, i'm starting editing commissions! more info on that [here](https://dakcollins.com/editing/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to aaronn for the pizza munchies goof/enduring my sweet dance moves during chamber choir 2day. aaronn's the real MVP. even though he's never actually heard wolf 359 he still reads all this for reasons i do not quite understand or condone but appreciate nonetheless.
> 
> anyway, have a happy chapter

Jacobi couldn't stop thinking about the bomb.

In the back of Kepler’s car—in the trunk, actually, tucked between Kepler’s duffle bag and the Bag Where They Kept the Guns™—was a pelican case housing an experimental bomb powerful enough to destroy a large building without fuss. That was, if it was properly armed. Which, at the moment, it was not.

If properly armed, the bomb would begin a ten-minute timer that should allow ample time for those privileged with being in-the-know to evacuate aforementioned large building. 

_If_. 

_Should_. 

There were too many variables for Jacobi’s liking. Of course, if he were there  _with_  the bomb, he wouldn’t worry about it. He’d charge right in and do his job, just like he’d done a hundred times before, and everything would turn out just fine and dandy, and they’d all hold hands and skip off into the sunset, ears ringing as the building and Jacobi’s bomb burst into military-grade fireworks behind them. 

But Jacobi was not with the bomb.

So Jacobi couldn’t stop thinking about the bomb.

It had been four days since Jacobi’s forced hibernation had begun. He woke up halfway through the third day in a state of acute awakeness with clear eyes, a regular temperature, and minimum amount of snot in his head. He took a long ( _long_ ) shower to rid himself of the thin layer of dried sweat he had accumulated during his plague, then stood on his balcony in a thin t-shirt and a pair of old, worn jeans for a while, reveling in the cool evening air against his arms and feet and in his lungs. 

He almost smoked a cigarette. He consciously did not smoke a cigarette. Four points to house Jacobi.

That was around the time he’d started thinking about the bomb.

That had been a day ago. 

A whole day for Jacobi to pace around his apartment and turn the television on and off and pick up books and put them down somewhere else and write texts only to delete them and fling his phone onto the couch, the bed, the floor. 

He couldn’t call Maxwell. And she was probably busy, so he didn’t want to bother her with a constant barrage of texts (plus, Kepler would probably not take kindly to that).

Should he call Kepler? He’d said Jacobi was only allowed to answer his calls, but was that line of communication a two-way street or was it strictly “I’ll talk to you if I want to talk to you, roar! Grr! Angry sounds!” Who knows! Not Jacobi! Though he had a hunch it was the latter, given Kepler hadn’t ever responded to Jacobi’s text about the blueprints—which was in itself several other cans of worms. 

Speaking of which, Jacobi should really go to the grocery store. He was getting suspicious that he hadn’t eaten anything in four days. 

“Yeah,” Jacobi said to himself. That was where his evening was at. Talking to himself. Hands on his hips in the kitchen. Every few seconds glancing hopefully at his phone on the counter. “I’ll go to the grocery store. What the kids call an  _outing_ , I believe.”

Pause. He rubbed his eyes. He missed Maxwell. On the bright side, he didn’t miss Kepler. It was the little things, y’know?

He put a t-shirt on, grabbed his wallet and phone, and walked to the grocery store. At that point it was around five pm, and it was warm enough to not need a jacket but to at the same time wish he had one, and there was a quality to the air that reminded Jacobi that News Channel 4 had promised rain the next morning.

And after thirty-six hours of radio silence, it was only natural that Kepler would FaceTime him right as the cashier scanned Jacobi’s fourth can of minestrone soup. 

Jacobi was no expert, but he was pretty sure it was somewhere in the Grocery Store Code that you shouldn’t answer a FaceTime in the checkout line. Jacobi saw that social custom and raised it: Major Warren Kepler. 

“Ah, shit,” he told the cashier. “I—I’m sorry, I’ve really gotta take this. It’s my…uh.” He thought quickly of someone whose call would warrant an answer. “Husband.”  _What? Boss! Boss is true and also a perfectly acceptable answer!_

This was why Jacobi never left his home.

The cashier clearly didn’t care nearly as much as Jacobi did, because she just smiled vaguely and nodded and put his cereal in a paper bag. 

The standard procedure for a FaceTime was that the other person’s face appeared on your phone, but that didn’t mean Jacobi was prepared for Kepler’s face to pop up, or for his voice suddenly in Jacobi’s ears; loud, confident, and entirely available for anyone in the checkout line to hear. (At least there wasn’t anyone behind him.)

“Jacobi,” Kepler greeted, with a half-smile that would frustrate and infuriate even under normal circumstances. “Good to see you on your feet. I need to talk to you about—“

“Um. Heyyy, dear,” said Jacobi. “Listen, can I call you back in, like, ten minutes? Now isn’t a great time.”

Kepler blinked several times, like he’d just realized Jacobi was a concrete and not an abstract noun. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the grocery store.”

“Grocery store?”

“You know, where people get food?”

“What are you doing there?”

“Take a guess.”

“I thought you were sick,” accused Kepler. 

“I was,” said Jacobi. “Now I am buying pizza rolls.”

“Jacobi, what have I told you about healthy eating habits? This is why you got sick—“

The cashier politely cleared her throat. “Sir, whenever you’re finished with your husband, the card reader is ready for you to scan.” 

Kepler tilted his head, thoughtful. Jacobi coughed and fumbled with his card, glad for the excuse to not be looking at Kepler. “Right, sorry,” he said. He felt like a dumbass. Probably because he was a dumbass.

“I’ll call you back later, darling,” said Kepler smoothly, which made Jacobi cough again and almost drop his card. “I didn’t mean to catch you in the middle of something.”

“That’d be great,” said Jacobi through his teeth as the cashier printed his receipt. “I’ll talk to you soon. Babe.”

“Love you!” said Kepler in the most obnoxious way possible: the subtle kind that no one except Jacobi would be able to pick up on.

Before Jacobi could retaliate or melt into a jello, Kepler hung up on him. 

“I’m really sorry about that,” said Jacobi, shoving the phone into his pocket and accepting his receipt. “He’s out of town.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” the cashier shrugged. “Military?”

Jacobi was reminded of the time he met Kepler like the victim of a hit and run was reminded of an old injury by seeing a car like the one that hit them.

Trying not to sound too dry, Jacobi asked, “How’d you know?”

“Oh,” the cashier shrugged. She was about seventeen, kind of small, trendy brown hair. “He just reminds me of my dad.” 

This was the most horrifying news Jacobi had ever received. The cashier handed him his two bags and said, “Have a nice night, sir!”

 

By some miracle, Jacobi managed to make it home and put all of his groceries away before Kepler’s name popped back up on his phone.

Didn't get the pizza rolls in, though. Hard loss for people named Daniel Jacobi.

"Husband?" was the first thing Kepler said, with a glint in his eye that really shouldn't be visible through a video.

"Yeah, yeah, don't get smug. I had to tell her something."

"Since when are you in the business of feeling like you owe people things?"

"It's the sickness," Jacobi mourned, with a feeble cough. "I'm just not my _self_ , sir."

With a thoughtful expression, Kepler ignored Jacobi's dramatics. "We could probably be married," he mused. "Might be useful."

Had Kepler just proposed to him?

Someone in the background of the video cleared her throat loudly. Thank God that most of the time, Maxwell always had his back.

"Sir, weren't we going to discuss the bomb?" she said.

"Right you are, Maxwell," Kepler cheered. "Tell us about this bomb of yours, Jacobi."

Oh, right. The bomb. Jacobi had tried so hard to forget about it.

"...Uh," said Jacobi. "Anything in particular?"

"We need to know how to arm it."

"How long you got?"

"Two hours."

Two was not enough time to explain the complexities of an experimental explosive.

"Two hours is not enough time to explain the—"

"Yes," Kepler interrupted, "I think you'll find that it  _is_ , Jacobi."

"I..." Jacobi caught sight of Maxwell in the background; she was giving him a Look. Jacobi rested his hands on the kitchen counter, where he'd propped his phone against the toaster, and briefly ducked his head to sigh. "Of course, sir. Whatever you need."

"See? Just goes to show you, you can do anything you put your—Ah, Jacobi?"

Jacobi, who had crossed to the oven and now had his back turned to the phone, looked over his shoulder. "Hm?"

“What. Are you doing?"

Jacobi held up the plastic bag he'd just emptied onto a cookie sheet. "Makin' pizza munchies," he said.

Distantly, Maxwell yelled, "What the hell is a pizza munchie?"

Kepler briefly closed his eyes, clicked his tongue. "It is in both of your best interests," he said, "to stay on task."

A loud  _chink_  as the oven door slammed. “Um,” said Jacobi. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn't interfere with my process, Major."

"We don't have time for this."

"But, sir..." Jacobi paused in the middle of setting the timer, turned around, raised his eyebrows. "You just said we've got two hours."

It was easier to fuck with Kepler over FaceTime, because the repercussions weren't as imminent, and his  _You're On Thin Ice, Mr. Jacobi_  expression wasn't as effective with a barrier of several hundred miles between them.

"Start talking, Jacobi," Kepler ordered. Ah. The voice was still pretty scary. Noted. “Or do you _want_ Dr. Maxwell and I to blow ourselves up tonight?"

Jacobi leaned on the counter and cracked his knuckles. "Alright," he said. "First thing, you've got to set it up."

The oven timer counted down.

 

"...and after that, the bomb'll be armed, and you'll have a _bout_ ten minutes to make yourselves scarce before it makes you scarce." Jacobi popped a pizza roll into his mouth. "Nny queffchuns?"

"Did you get all that, Maxwell?" Kepler asked.

Beside him, Maxwell's eyes darted back and forth on her laptop screen; the tapping of keys had underscored Jacobi's explanation since about ten minutes in, when he and Kepler had started arguing about whether or not Jacobi told them the initiation sequence started with B or with 7 (hint: Jacobi, being the one with the  _Master's degree in forensic science_ , was right; Kepler was just an asshole).

"Yeah," said Maxwell. "Got it."

"Great," said Jacobi, but he didn't feel great. The idea of them messing with a bomb like that under two hours' overview and a word document full of notes (however perfectly typed they may be) made his stomach twist. "Now, to disarm—"

“I applaud you for your thoroughness, but we don't have time for that," said Kepler. "We need to head out in ten minutes to make it before the guards switch shifts—"

" _Uh_ ," said Jacobi. "You. You _don't_ want to know how to disarm the bomb."

"That won't be necessary."

"It won't be necessary to… to know how to disarm the bomb," Jacobi repeated.

"If all goes well, we won't need to disarm the bomb."

" _If_ all goes well."

"I'm sorry, Jacobi, are you doubting the abilities of your team?"

"It's not about you guys, it's about  _the explosive_ you've never—"

“So you're doubting your own ability to construct a bomb?" Kepler noted. "Quite the statement, coming from a so-called ballistics expert. What was the level of that degree you mentioned earlier?"

"Master's," Jacobi snapped. "And of course I'm not doubting myself. I’m not doubting anyone. It’s not about people, sometimes mistakes happen, and they're nobody's fault, but you can at least try to—“

"Ah," Kepler drawled, and it was at times like this, when he used that voice, that lazy, holier-than-thou purr, that Jacobi hated him all the way down to his marrow. "And you'd know all about mistakes that aren't anyone's fault. Wouldn't you, Mr. Jacobi?”

And he stood. And he walked out of camera view, leaving Maxwell to stare pityingly at Jacobi, whose knuckles turned white where he gripped the edge of the counter because _that_ was off limits, Kepler _knew_ that, they _all knew that—_

"We're leaving in five minutes," said Kepler off-screen. A door closed. Jacobi forced himself to breathe.

Maxwell tilted her head. "You feeling better?"

"I _was_ ," said Jacobi. “Until." He gestured with one hand, to encompass the bomb, Kepler, Jacobi not being there.

"We'll be fine," Maxwell said. "You're just sad you're not here to micromanage everything."

"What do you mean  _I'm_  the one who micromanages?  _He's_  the one who—"

"Oh, you're breaking up," Maxwell apologized.

"You asshole."

"What? Sorry, I just can't hear—"

"Maxwell!" Kepler's voice was distant but firm. "Get ready!"

She spread her hands and smiled at Jacobi’s glower, then grew serious. "Hey," she said. "Don't worry about us, hm? I'll call you when we get out. Kepler's stupid rules be damned."

_"Maxwell!"_

"Gotta go!" said Maxwell. She waved, and he waved (less enthusiastically), and the call ended.

Despite her promise, Jacobi hoped she'd be calling later rather than sooner.

He shouldn't have jinxed it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, everyone! i love you all.
> 
> also, for those of you speculating about the title.... Soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! most of this chapter is pretty funny (i.e. not violent), but do note the change in warnings! the violence isn't too bad, especially in terms of what we see in the show itself, but i wanted to make sure y'all knew what was coming so just a heads up: it's warren kepler. if that stuff's no bueno for you, you can skim straight to the dialogue during the red bits :-)

As a man of position, Kepler wasn't in the habit of being wrong, but when he was, he was proud to admit it was always someone else's fault.

The guard was supposed to switch at 11:00. They switched at 11:06. If they were Kepler's people, they'd be tarred and feathered, but that was beside the point. The main thing was, no sooner had the bomb been armed than alarms started blaring and people in heavy boots started storming down halls.

The good news: Kepler had managed to barricade himself and Maxwell inside the bomb room.

The bad news: Kepler had managed to barricade himself and Maxwell inside the bomb room.

Someone pounded on the heavy metal doors with a heavy metal Thing. Kepler slid open the eye-slot, shot the offender in the head, closed the slot.

Footsteps pounded overhead. Alarms whirred.

"Maxwell," said Kepler, one foot on either side of the border between calm and rage. "Phone?"

"He's not answering," Maxwell sing-sang from across the room, where she knelt next to the bomb. The armed bomb. The bomb with a countdown timer pleasantly reminding them it was time to leave.

"Why the hell isn't he answering?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because  _you told him not to?"_

One of the footsteps got too close; Kepler fired out the slot again. If they kept trying that trick, there'd be so many of them piled in front of the door, Kepler wouldn't have to worry about barricades at all. He grimaced, reached into his coat pocket, tossed his phone at Maxwell.

"Use mine."

The phone smacked the floor, which would be fine—Kepler hadn't spent two hundred dollars on a phone case for nothing—had it not been so close to an armed bomb. Maxwell hissed nervously through her teeth as she grabbed it. Kepler glared at her. They'd have to work on her catching—but later.

"The passcode is—"

"I know," Maxwell interrupted, phone already gripped to her ear. Kepler raised both eyebrows—but that, too, would be an issue for a later time. One with less weaponry involved. (Probably).

_ThumpThump_. Kepler turned his back on Maxwell, opened the slot, and fired...

...Fired? He tried again. ClickClickClick.

"God damn it," Kepler snarled, slamming the slot closed and ducking into a crouch beside the door _(ThumpThump)._ The pistol was jammed. He set it aside and dug through the duffel bag.

_Whump. WHUMP_.

"Uh, Kepler, the  _door_?" Maxwell reminded him.

"I have this under control," Kepler spat. "You worry about disarming that bomb."

BANG. A bullet sang through the cover of the slot Kepler'd used as a peephole and made a dent in the far wall, about five feet over Maxwell's head.

" _Under control?_ " she yelled.

" _Why are you talking to me when you should be talking to Jacobi?"_

"Jacobi isn't  _here_  or we wouldn't—"

Two things happened at once:

1) Jacobi must have answered the phone, because Maxwell said, "Thank God, what the hell took you so long? Tell me how to—“

2) The door burst open and two armed guards stormed in.

Luckily, a third thing happened only a second later: Kepler got up, stepped between Maxwell and the guards, and opened fire.

_Bang. Bang_. Step over the bodies, ram the butt of the shotgun into a third intruder's jaw, kick the gun out of a fourth's hand and grapple until the guy's back was to Kepler's front and Kepler's shotgun was pulled tight across his throat; that way the fifth couldn't get a clean shot, and Kepler could fight toward the door to shut it again—

" _Yes_ , obviously those were gunshots, Daniel. Puh- _lease_  tell me how to disarm the bomb now, we are on a  _very_  tight schedule—"

Kepler threw his human-shield in front of a bullet, then shot the shooter's gun arm (Could've just killed him, but what was the fun in that?) While that one cried and clutched his arm, Kepler knocked the legs out from under the human-shield, sending him sprawling, and Kepler smashed his face in with the shotgun until his nose no longer made a satisfying  _crunch_.

They were in the hallway now. Maxwell's words weren't as clear to him, but her voice was a steady hum in the background.

In the foreground, the last remaining guard saw Kepler turn on him—teeth glinting, blood spattered on his arms, his front, his face.

The guard whimpered.

Kepler crouched down so they were almost eye level. "You got a radio?" he asked.

"Y-yeah."

"Well, congratulations! Why don't you use it to tell your people everything down here's under control, hm? Situation terminated."

The guard blinked. "Then you won't—you won't..." His eyes flickered to his faceless friend, then left just as quickly.

"Why, of course not! That'd be a waste."

Swallowing hard, the guard pressed the button on a radio hooked to his shoulder.

Shortly after he signaled the all clear, the alarms stopped.

As soon as that happened, Kepler used his last round to shoot the man between the eyes.

Kepler straightened up, adjusted his collar, and returned to Maxwell (shutting the door first, dragging a few of the dead men in front of it just in case). 

“How’s it coming, here?” he asked. 

“Okay,” Maxwell told the phone, “Connect the red wire to the black wire, and then—What do you  _mean_  stop? Jacobi, you have to tell me the right one on the first time, please, or this isn’t going to—oh, shut up, you designed the damn thing—“

_“Maxwell,”_  Kepler cut in. She blinked dramatically up at him and put a hand over the phone. He repeated, “How’s. It. Coming?”

“You really shouldn’t distract me, Colonel—“

“Give me the phone.” Kepler took the phone, turned it on speaker. Jacobi was mid-rant. 

“—normally don’t have to tell people how to do it, I just do it myself, so ex _cuse_  me for getting confused with no visual and no description other than  _‘I don’t know, it’s a bomb,’_ —“ 

“Jacobi,” said Kepler, casually. 

Pause.

“Yes, sir?”

“There are, currently,” a glance at the timer, “six and a half minutes on the clock. Would you like more information, or is the knowledge that we are about to die enough to jog your memory?”

“Y’know,  _oddly enough_ , it’s not! It’s almost as though in order to direct you, I need to  _see what you’re doing—_ “

Maxwell cleared her throat. “Kind of like someone should’ve let him explain how to disarm the bomb  _before_  we were in this situation—“

“ _QUIET_.”

Since only one of them could see Kepler, it was probably his voice and not the blood on his face that made Maxwell and Jacobi go silent. 

“It is your job to work with explosives,” Kepler noted, “Isn’t it, Jacobi?”

“Yeah but I’m not—“

“Not what? Not capable of following through on your most basic purpose without  _whining_  about it?” 

Silence. Maxwell glared at Kepler. He pretended not to notice, but, after a moment, said in a gentle voice, “Come on, Jacobi. Walk us through this. I know we can trust you.”

A deep breath on the other line. “Okay,” said Jacobi. “Okay. Maxwell, did you take care of the wires?”

“I think so.”

“Dude, what did I _just_ say about definitive answers—"

"Okay, okay,  _yes_ , I took care of the stupid wires, now what?"

"Do you see the panel on the side of the bomb with the four little screws?"

"Uhh, no?"

"Yes," said Kepler. "What about it?"

"You need to take that off and enter the initial kill sequence into the number pad."

Kepler was about to ask why he'd made it so complicated when Maxwell said, "We don't have a screwdriver."

"Well, I guess there's absolutely no alternative and you're both fucked, then," Jacobi snapped. "You have a goddamn PhD, figure it out!"

Kepler set the phone on the floor by the bomb and walked over to the gun bag. 

"What are you  _doing?"_  Maxwell yelled.

"I'm trying to not let you blow up!"

"No, not you—"

"This should work," said Kepler, producing a knife from the bag and flicking it open. It was sleek, double-edged, freshly sharpened. Illegal in most states, but so were the things Kepler did with it. "Move aside, Dr. Maxwell."

" _You're_  gonna do it?" she asked, skeptical, as he knelt by the bomb.

"Excuse me?"

"You've got big hands."

"I fail to see how the size of my hands would affect my ability to—"

The bomb emitted a horrifying DING; the timer had just reached four minutes.

"We don't have time for this!" Maxwell said.

"I'm glad we're on the same page," said Kepler, fitting the tip of the knife into the first screw.

"Have you guys got it yet?" Jacobi asked. He sounded like he was running his hands through his hair. He did that when he was stressed.

"No, Kepler's just started on the— _uh, sir, why The Hell are you smiling?_ "

Kepler's face went neutral. "Walk Maxwell through the next step," he said, dropping the second screw.

"I can't until you get the panel off—"

"Why not?" Maxwell demanded.

"Because you have to see what's—"

" _Jacobi_ ," growled Maxwell and Kepler.

"Alright! Fine! You're gonna see a keypad with zero through 9, I need you to put in the code 7287-5564-1834-4. Got that?"

"Yeah," said Maxwell. "If Kepler would just—"

BEEP. Three minutes. Kepler ripped the plate off and tossed it aside. "There," he said. "What's the code?"

"Just let me—"

"I'm right here."

_"So am I—"_

"Just tell me the code."

" _Will one of you please just do it there's twelve more to go!"_

_"Twelve?"_  Kepler and Maxwell demanded. She slapped at his hands, and he slapped back, until eventually she yelled in frustration and started reciting the code.

"7287, 5564—"

"No, no, 55 _46_!" Jacobi interrupted.

"That is not what you said!" she snapped.

"Well, forget what I said!"

" _HEY_."

Maxwell breathed sharply, eyes set on Kepler. 

"If you two  _toddlers_  are done arguing, I would appreciate it if you could stop panicking like a couple of headless chickens and start solving the problem like the goddamn professionals you've been apparently masquerading as for years. If I have to call either of you down  _one more time_ , it won't be a bomb that will kill you. Stop floundering and  _figure it out_."

Maxwell bit her lip. Jacobi said, "Right, sir. Maxwell, I'll read the codes off, you punch them in. Okay?"

"Okay," she said.

"From where Kepler left off, it's 1834..."

Around that time, the one guard Kepler had forgotten to kill came to, groaning and holding the lump on his head.

"Oh, for God's sake," sighed Kepler, launching himself to his feet so he could storm over to the guard and lay a boot on his chest before he could manage to sit up.

"What? What's happening?" Jacobi asked.

"Don't worry about it, keep the codes coming," Maxwell said. Kepler, his back to her, smiled. Good, she was learning.

The guard was still woozy from unconsciousness, but he was well-trained. Well, that was a strong word. More like not-stupid. He tried to wriggle out from Kepler's boot. Kepler knelt, foot still on his chest, knee on the ground beside him. He held up the knife and pressed it flat to the guard's mouth.

"Don't scream, now," he murmured, amiably. "Might wake your friends."

The guard's eyes darted wildly, settled on the two dead guards beside him. His eyes widened and his mouth opened, and before he could speak there was a knife plunged deep into his jugular.

Kepler stood and kicked him onto his side so the blood fountained onto the floor. Wiped his knife on the inside of his coat as he returned to Maxwell.

One minute on the timer.

"—1747-7. That's the last. Now hit the—"

"Oh, no," Maxwell murmured.

"What?" said Jacobi.

"What." said Kepler.

"I—oh, Christ, I typed the wrong... Jacobi, start over, tell me the codes again."

Kepler hissed through his nose, "Maxwell, there are  _forty-seven_  seconds—"

"Oh my god," said Jacobi. "Oh my god."

_"The codes!"_  Kepler and Maxwell shouted.

Jacobi rattled them off, Maxwell typing frantically, her hands ever-steady despite the horror in her eyes as the timer dwindled and she and Kepler together realized that they were fucked—despite Jacobi's swift, clear instruction, despite Maxwell's expert number typing—because only so much was humanly possible, and as much as they all liked to make believe otherwise, there was nevertheless one intrinsic truth:

They were all only human.

Ten seconds on the timer. Seven codes to go. Kepler laid a hand on Maxwell's arm and she jumped, whirling toward him, her glasses askew.

"Maxwell," he said. "That's enough. Thank you."

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She rubbed her face and closed her eyes.

"You too, Jacobi."

"WHAT?" Jacobi hollered; his voice came out static through the speaker phone. "No, No! Why the hell would you—god Damn it you could've—just—there's still time, no no no no no you CAN'T not while I'm not there not without—you can't leave me like this, what the fuuck what the fuck NO—"

That was enough of that. Jacobi shouldn't have to hear this. Kepler tactfully swiped up his phone and hung up.

Well, thought Kepler, clutching the phone. If it had to be Jacobi's fault he died, at least Jacobi felt bad about it.

_Two. One_.

Beep.

Kepler waited. Looked around. Expectant, a little annoyed.

_Zero. Negative one. Negative two_.

Nothing happened.

Maxwell opened one eye, stared at Kepler, stared at the bomb. She said, carefully, "Oh?"

Kepler stood and said, "A little disappointing, huh? Must've armed it wrong. Hah!"

" _Disappointing_?" Maxwell breathed, still on her knees. " _Hah_? We almost died—"

"So?" said Kepler. He zipped up the duffel bag now, slung it over his shoulder. "We  _almost_  die all the time. Kinda thought this'd be the real thing. Exciting, right?"

Open-mouthed, it took Maxwell a few tries to get out a " _No_ ," and by then Kepler had already waved for her to follow him out. They were far behind schedule, and now their main plan was ruined. That was alright. Kepler, of course, had several backup plans.

The first involved a boiler room a few halls over.

"Look alive, Dr. Maxwell," he cheered, stepping over body. "We're doing this the old fashioned way."

 

It wasn't until much, much later, when he and Maxwell were packed with their bags in the car on their way home, that Kepler remembered he'd never called Jacobi back after the bomb situation.

"Ah," he told the windshield (Maxwell was fast asleep in the passenger's seat and had been for several hours). "Whoops."

It solidified his theory that Rachel Young had bugged his phone that, just as he said those words, it started to ring.

He answered, "What do you want?"

"So you're  _not_  dead," Young breezed. "I  _thought_  he was delusional."

Kepler had gravely overestimated his capacity to handle this phone call. "Thought who was delusional," he deadpanned.

"Your boy! Duh."

"My boy."

"You know the one. So I take it the job went poorly?"

"The job went," said Kepler. "That's enough."

"Hmmm." Kepler didn't like that hum. "Not like you to be so careless, Warren. Would you say something...  _distracted_  you?"

"Sounds like you've got something specific in mind."

"Oh, I do. I think you do, too." If her voice was any more musical, it'd be part of a kick line. "Was it hard for you to be so long without your pet? Not being able to take care of your poor sick baby?"

"Beatrice is with the dog sitter, she's fine."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"I would like to direct you to our last conversation, in which I'm pretty sure I told you not to insinuate that you have any business prying into my team's affairs—"

"Did you know he's in love with you?"

Kepler's hand tightened around the steering wheel, and he glanced at the passenger seat. Maxwell was drooling a little on her shoulder.

He said, slowly, "Yes. I do."

"Hm," she said. "Did you know you're in love with him?"

If he could, he'd set the horizon on fire with his eyes. When he didn't respond, Young laughed, cruel and cattish.

"I'm just looking out for you, Warren! You know what could happen if Someone found out."

Kepler said, "If you'll excuse me, Miss Young, I have a very long drive ahead of myself and would prefer to spend it doing anything besides being on the phone with you."

"Fine, fine," she tittered. "Whatever you say. Don't worry, I'll let him know you two aren't being scraped off a floor somewhere."

Kepler hung up and launched the phone over his shoulder into the backseat. He'd been about to trade shifts with Maxwell, but instead, he found himself gripping the wheel in both hands and driving straight on until the sun rose high above the road.

His phone did not ring again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more to go! thanks as always 2 all readers, kudosers, and commenters. and congrats to aaronn on reaching season 3 of w359 and finally having an inkling of wtf i'm talking about here
> 
> as always u can find me on tumblr @bacchusofficial where u can send me prompts/messages/complaints 24/7


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are!! final chapter!

As a black cadillac pulled up the driveway of Kepler’s uptown home—which looked, Jacobi’d always thought, like a knock off Frank Lloyd Wright—Jacobi tossed the TV remote on the couch and leapt to his feet. 

For a minute or so, he stood at the living room window, only able to clench and unclench his fists and watch two people emerge from the cadillac, talking to each other briefly, tiredly. 

The trunk slammed shut. The sound sent a bolt of action through Jacobi, and the next thing he knew he was throwing the front door open and hollering at Kepler across his own lawn at half-past midnight.

“YOU!” 

Kepler, bag slung over his shoulder, paused halfway up the sidewalk. He was surprised to see Jacobi, (for some reason), but he did a good job of hiding it. He looked Jacobi up and down, let the bag slowly drop to the ground, and said, “Mr. Jacobi. Good to see you’re doing—"   


“ _Don’t_ you _Mr. Jacobi_ me you _asshole!”_

Kepler’s eyebrows raised briefly, and he blinked. 

“What—“

There was a green plastic recycling bin on the porch by the door, conveniently within reach. Jacobi picked it up and hurled it across the yard—Kepler sidestepped easily but angrily. 

_“Mr. Jacobi—“_

_“What did I just say?”_ Jacobi stormed down the stairs, grabbed the empty bottle of whiskey that had fallen out of the bin, and lobbed that at Kepler too—this time, it narrowly missed, and shattered on the driveway. “Huh? What the _hell_ did I just—“

“Whoa, whoa, _whoa_.” Maxwell got between them before Jacobi could get within more than six feet. “You need to calm down—“

“I AM PERFECTLY CALM!” Jacobi shrieked. “I’M AS CALM AS A CUCUMBER!” 

“That’s not the saying,” said Kepler. 

_“Shut up!”_ Jacobi lunged at him, but Maxwell caught him by the shoulders and shoved him back—she was very strong. 

“Daniel,” she said. 

“ _What—"_  
“Stop making such a fuss, you’re going to give the neighbors the wrong idea.” 

“ _Oh,_ God forbid! God forbid _I_ give someone the wrong idea!” 

Maxwell’s grip on Jacobi’s shoulders tightened, and she grimaced, and the next handful of seconds were tense and all three of them were silent, stone-faced. 

“Let’s go inside,” Maxwell suggested, already steering Jacobi up the porch and through the door. He went along stoically, suddenly too angry to think straight, let her lead him into the living room where she shut the blinds and turned off the TV. 

It was quiet in the house, like it had been when Jacobi’d first arrived yesterday evening, when he’d stumbled in thinking—thinking the worst. 

(It was go here, or go to Alana’s, but Jacobi’d known, even then, even in That state, that going to Alana’s would’ve meant his end, too. So Jacobi had gone to Kepler’s. And, several hours later, Rachel had shown up—something about watering the plants—and found him, and told him to get himself together, it’d only been a week, and then he’d told her about The Bomb, and then she’d gone gray and stepped out to talk on the phone for a while, and when she’d returned she had news that no one was dead and Jacobi was an idiot. So basically, nothing had changed. Except now Jacobi was livid. And the anger only built from there.)

Jacobi stood in the center of the living room stared at the sleek white couch, where not too long ago he’d cried his eyes out. He couldn’t look at Maxwell, who hovered near the island that separated the kitchen from the living room, and he especially couldn’t look at Kepler, who stood in the doorway to the foyer. 

And no one said anything. And Jacobi got the feeling that, just for that tense, silent moment, they all hated each other.

“So.” Of course Kepler spoke first. “You’re angry because…” 

“Take a wild guess,” Jacobi insisted through his teeth. Bad idea.

“Let’s see,” said Kepler. He was so _unconcerned_. “Is it because we left you here?” 

“Kepler,” warned Maxwell. 

“I _believe_ I was talking to Jacobi.”

Jacobi squeezed his fists. “Yes, but—no. That’s not—“

“Not why you’re angry? Hmmmm.” Jacobi could hear Kepler’s foot tapping on the hardwood floor, and wished it was in stomping range. “Then is it because I sent Miss Young to check on you?”

“No.” 

“Is it because I embarrassed you at the grocery store?”

“ _What?_ No! No, of course it’s not about the fucking—” 

“Jacobi, if you could do me the courtesy of looking at me while you yell instead of turning your back and sulking like a child, that would be just grand.” 

Jacobi whirled on his heels and hurled a couch pillow across the room. It hit Kepler’s chest, because he made no effort to move—his eyes, when they flicked between the pillow on the floor and Jacobi, said, _A pillow? Really?_

Because she could see the murder in Jacobi’s eyes—or because she just didn’t want to have to clean up any mess—Maxwell stepped in again, between Kepler and Jacobi, one arm outstretched in either of their directions. “Look,” she said. “Let’s, for once, stop antagonizing each other and just—“

“Why didn’t you call?” Jacobi demanded. Something flickered in her eyes. She cleared her throat.

“Daniel, you know what Kepler said—“  
“Not _then._ I mean _after_.” 

And there it was; the guilt, the press of the lips, the drawing breath to excuse—and no. No. There was no excuse for this.

“Ten hours. Couldn’t have called? Couldn’t have sent a quick little text? Couldn’t have flown a carrier pigeon? _Nothing_ at _all?”_

“We were.” She adjusted her glasses, picked at the loose threads on the sleeve of her hoodie. “We were busy.” 

Jacobi laughed, harsh, barking. “Busy,” he said. “First ten minutes, sure, sure. I get it. You had to get out of there. First hour? Alright—still got a job to do, right? Sure. You were _busy_. But for _ten hours?_ You couldn’t say a fucking _word?”_

“Look, what do you want me to say, Daniel? I made a mistake, I fell asleep, I just didn’t think about—“

“I thought you were dead.” 

For the first time she stopped fidgeting. At least she looked him in the eye. 

“Both of you.” It was getting hard to breathe again. “You hung up, and I thought you were gone and that it was all—that it was all my fault, that I’d fucked up again and this time it was _you_ and I—I couldn’t—“ He swallowed. “And then Rachel, and you _weren’t_ , but you still hadn’t called, neither one of you, you still hadn’t told _me_ and I still thought that maybe… maybe you really had… maybe you really _were—“_

Quiet laughter from the corner, building slowly, and the effort Jacobi’d been using to hold back tears all got repurposed into blind rage. 

“ _What the HELL are you laughing at?”_ he roared. Instantly, Kepler’s laughter stopped, but the smile remained, on his face and in his voice.

“So _that_ ’ _s_ what you’re angry about?” Kepler asked, like he didn’t believe it, like it was unreasonable of Jacobi to mourn him, to mourn Maxwell, to be so entwined with each of them that losing even one would rend every muscle from every bone. 

“Yes,” was all Jacobi could say. 

“You really thought we were dead?”

“How was I supposed to know you weren’t? It’s not like you gave me any other option—“

“I would have known.” If his expression hadn’t suddenly gone blank, Jacobi would think Kepler was taunting him. “I would have known if you’d died. No one would’ve had to tell me.” 

Maxwell took a step away from Kepler. Jacobi didn’t blame her; he would have too, if he weren’t rooted to the spot by pride and blind terror. If Kepler noticed the movement, he didn’t flinch. His eyes bored into Jacobi’s, and maybe it was just the light, but Jacobi didn’t recognize him anymore. 

“I would have heard it,” Kepler went on. His mouth barely moved. “Even if you were ten thousand miles away. I would have felt it in the ground, in the air. I’d have felt it like a train, like losing a limb.“

“How—“ Jacobi swallowed, and tried again. “No, you wouldn’t. That’s not how it works. You can’t—you can’t just say things like that and expect—“

“I’d know, Jacobi.” He held his gaze. “Daniel.” 

And he turned and walked down the hall to his bedroom, like it was just the end of a regular mission and nothing had happened and they’d all just gotten back and were staying the night at Kepler’s, like they did sometimes when it was late and they were too focused on each other to go back to living on their own just yet. 

Jacobi watched the empty doorway. 

“Um,” said Maxwell, when it was clear Kepler wasn’t coming back any time soon. “You good?”

“Fuck that guy,” Jacobi hissed. He walked up to the door, poked his head in the hall. At the end of it, the door to the bedroom was open. He could hear Kepler moving around, but (thankfully) couldn’t see him.

When he turned back, Maxwell was there, and her arms were around him, and her head was on his shoulder and she said, “I am so sorry.” 

He was still angry, but he let his arms fall around her and buried his head in her hair because more than he was angry, he was so relieved, that she was here and breathing and warm in his arms. 

It was hard for him to say, “It’s okay,” to say, “I forgive you,” but he did, anyway. They were past pride, between them. They both had it so much with other people that it was nice to be able to let go with someone. 

“Don’t ever get sick again,” Maxwell said. “That was a goddamn disaster.”

“Sure,” he said, “As long as you never die again.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I plan to never die,” she breezed, and they laughed.

Good, then. At least they were patched up. 

He and Kepler, though? Jacobi was pretty sure they hadn’t even patched up their last ten arguments, unless just painting over the problem with another one counted. (It didn’t.)

Eh, whatever. They’d lasted this long.

It was late, but there was an Italian place down the street that delivered all night—partially because it was a front for the mob, partially because they knew it was a front for the mob—so they ordered sub-par ravioli and pizza and ate it on Kepler’s couch watching Netflix, and it was almost like they’d all come back from a regular job, no sickness, no phone calls, nothing bad whatsoever. Well, nothing worse than what was in the job description.

Except: Kepler didn’t come out of his room. 

And except: around two in the morning, Maxwell nudged Jacobi with her arm and said, “You gonna go talk to him?” in a voice that meant, _You should go talk to him_. 

“Ryew jowkng?” Jacobi asked around a mouthful of pizza. Maxwell looked disgusted. Jacobi finished and tried again. “Are you joking? Absolutely not. I don’t owe him—“

“Of course you don’t _owe_ him, dumbass,” she said. “I just mean I’d rather you guys finish this ugly tonight than let it stew all week and try to kill each other with wire cutters in the lab. Again.” 

They had an incident chart. 

Jacobi stared sullenly at his pizza crust. 

“Don’t you think,” said Maxwell. “Just, maybe, that if you two were more honest with each other, you’d be…” She struggled to find the word, and he could tell she still hadn’t found it when she settled on a noncommittal, “Happier?” 

“No,” he said. “I think if he wasn’t the personification of a brick wall, I’d have an easier time punching him in the face.” 

“Yeah,” she snorted. “Because _that’s_ all you wanna do to his face.”

“uM?” said Jacobi. “What—“ He coughed. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Maxwell was unimpressed. “Just because you’ve never told me out loud doesn’t mean you’ve never told me, Daniel. Don’t insult me.”

Something writhed in Jacob’s chest, like a baby copperhead slithering around his ribcage. He stared at his knees, jaw clenched. Maybe he was still sick, or the Italian place had finally poisoned him, after all, but he suddenly felt clammy, dizzy. 

Maxwell sighed. “I’m not saying go in there and make any big declarations—in fact, please, _please_ don’t. I’m just saying…” Maybe she didn’t know; it took her a minute to decide. “Like it or not—and, _trust me_ , I don’t like it—you need each other. In a scary way, sure, but it’s there.”

Jacobi didn’t trust himself to speak without throwing up, but he tried to nod, even though he didn’t want to. 

“To be honest, I’d like it best if you kicked the guy in the nuts and rode off into the sunset and never spoke to him again, but he’s our boss, and god knows neither of us are getting hired anywhere else, at this point. So just. You know. Go yell at each other for a while, get _that_ over with. Then you can go back to whatever dance you two’ve had going on the last… always.”

He groaned, face-planting on his side into the couch. She poked his back with increasing firmness, until finally he groaned again and stumbled to his feet.

“ _Fine_ ,” he said. “Fine. I’ll go.” He made it to the hallway door, then frowned, and looked over his shoulder. “Don’t _listen_.” 

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, eyes glued to the TV.

 

The bedroom door wasn’t open anymore, but it wasn’t locked, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that when Jacobi opened it, Kepler wasn’t in there. He stood in there at a loss, until the sliding glass door that led to the backyard opened and oh, right. Of course. There was Kepler, he’d gone outside. 

He was barefoot, in jeans and a t-shirt. He held a glass of whiskey. He smiled, like he’d expected Jacobi; who was Jacobi kidding, of course he’d expected him.

“Jacobi,” he said, jovial. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I came to kill you,” Jacobi deadpanned. 

“Oh?” Kepler walked outside again, but he left the door open, so Jacobi could still hear. “What’s your weapon of choice?” 

Jacobi followed him out, even though that’s what Kepler wanted him to do. “Poison,” he said. Kepler’s backyard was fenced in and well-manicured, though empty except for some patio furniture by the door and a big hydrangea bush at the far end. He lived in the part of town that was just nice enough to afford a few stars in the sky, above all the orange pollution. 

“Poison, hm?” said Kepler. He looked at his drink. He looked at Jacobi. He took a long, meaningful sip. Jacobi tried not to watch his mouth, his throat, his eyes, couldn’t look away—Kepler’s eyes, when he set his drink down, glittered, like, _I win._

Didn’t he always?

“How’s the flu, Jacobi?” Kepler asked, gesturing at the open chair as he sat in the other. 

“Gone.”

“Glad to hear it. You owe me a pair of shoes.” 

“You owe me the back half of a phone call.”

“You owe me a working bomb.”

“It’ll be on your desk bright and early, sir! Don’t mind the ticking.” 

“Thanks for the warning, but your last bomb didn’t give me any reason to worry.”

Jacobi ground his teeth, and sat down. Kepler refilled his glass with the bottle on the little table between them, pleased. 

“It wasn’t the bomb,” said Jacobi, because there’d been nothing wrong with the _bomb_. It just hadn’t been properly armed (Maxwell, with the safety of food and forgiveness, detailed the incident to him earlier). “It was—"

“I know,” said Kepler, “What it was. Thank God for it.” He took a sip, then offered Jacobi his glass. “Drink?” 

Jacobi looked at the glass suspiciously. 

“I promise the only poison’s whatever you put in it.” 

Jacobi took the glass, if only so Kepler couldn’t have it. He drank. He said, “I’m still really pissed at you.”

“Sure,” said Kepler. 

“You should’ve brought me with you. You should’ve listened when I tried to tell you how to disarm it. And you shouldn’t have fucking hung up on me like that. I mean—I mean what the hell was I supposed to think?”

“Right.”

“That—that you’d made it out, after all? No. Of course that’s not what I was going to think. You were dead, I was sure of it—and you _knew_ I thought so, don’t fucking dance around it, you knew, if not from the start then whenever Young called you, and you didn’t bother to correct me, anyway.I had to learn from _Rachel Fucking Young_ that you weren’t—“ He stopped on a deep breath, brought the glass back to his lips with a shaky hand, stared out at the yard. He felt Kepler’s eyes on his face, felt them for a long time.

“I’m here, now,” Kepler said, at last. “Talking to you, breathing the same air, drinking the same whiskey. Not dead. As far as I can tell. Isn’t that enough?” 

“You just don’t get it.” Jacobi couldn’t keep the sadness out of his voice, but he could hide it from Kepler by not looking at him—God, who was he kidding? He was so stupid. He shouldn’t be saying anything, but it was late, and he was drinking, and it was warm outside. “You just don’t fucking—“ He rubbed his eyes, set his glass on the table, and stood to leave—

A hand closed around his wrist, hot enough to scald but not enough to make Jacobi wrench away. “I meant it,” said Kepler. 

Jacobi shook his head, incredulous. “What?” 

“I would know. If you…” The hand squeezed. “I would know.”

It meant something more. The words, the hand, the tone of his voice, his eyes. It meant something Jacobi could guess at, could hope for, but in the end it was still just a guess. Just a hope.

Jacobi was sick of it. 

“Stop it,” he snapped, ripping his hand away. 

“What?”

“I said stop it. I’m tired of you— _doing_ this—no, let me finish.” Because Jacobi would be damned if all this false courage was wasted because Kepler cut in and talked and talked and smoothed it over and made Jacobi feel even more pathetic. Because Jacobi was pathetic, but he would not be smoothed. “You can’t just touch my hand and look at me like that and say things like _‘aw boo hoo, I’d be sad if you died’_ and think that means you can do whatever you want just because I’m a sad bastard motherfucker. I know you. I know what you do, I’ve seen you do it a hundred times, to me, to people on jobs, to the fucking Walgreens checkout lady, you find whatever it is people want to hear and you say it, and you use it against them.”

“Do I?” asked Kepler, mildly. 

“Fuck off,” Jacobi said. He stood up, he started to pace the yard. “Just—just _stop_ , okay? Whatever it is you’ve been trying to do, you’ve done it.” He waved his arms around wildly and plastered a broad fake grin on his face. “You’ve got me! Congratulations! Never going anywhere, now! Happy? Woo! Bring out the _fucking_ fireworks, huh? Actually—“ He laughed, maniacally, and it pierced the night air like the light of a lightning bug. “Actually, _don’t_ do _that_ , wouldn’t want to reuse any tricks, that’s just tacky—“

“Jacobi.”

Jacobi threw his arms in the air and half-cheered, half-screamed at the stars, one great long whoop. “Warren Kepler’s _done it at last_ , everyone! Thousands tried, millions failed, but _He’s_ finally brought Daniel over the edge, and he never even had to kiss him! What happens next will—will _shock_ you—“

“ _Jacobi_.”

Was breathing supposed to make your lungs hurt like this? Jacobi’s throat seized up and he had to inhale in deep, broken gasps, and he fell on his knees, and he buried his face in his hands and breathed, tried to breathe, _come on just breathe_. 

A large, warm hand laid itself between his shoulder blades and Jacobi flinched all over, so the hand went away. The grass rustled in front of him, like someone was kneeling down on the ground with him, but that wasn’t right, there was no one outside but Kepler—

But the voice that said “Look at me,” was Kepler’s, and came from right in front of him.

Slowly, Jacobi raised his head. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes felt red and hot. His body didn’t remember the last time it had slept, and he could imagine his organs were shutting down, one by one, exhausted by the last twenty-four hours. 

Kepler waited, keeping his gaze even and sure, until Jacobi could take a breath without it getting stuck inside his chest, and it hurt that that gaze made it easier, made Jacobi calmer, more sane, more whole. 

“Did I ever tell you,” said Kepler, “about the only time I ever fell in love?” 

Jacobi scrubbed at his eye with his wrist, sniffed. “Wh—what?” he asked. “No.” He didn’t _want_ to hear about that. Why the fuck would he want to hear about that?

Kepler sat back on his heels—he really was on his knees, right there in the grass, right there by Jacobi—“Well, it was two in the afternoon, and I’d been doing reconnaissance on a job—Goddard work—for about a week. It was time to engage the mark, see if they really were worth all that time, if they were really up to what we needed. I had it all planned out, every little detail, right down to the footsteps, as any plan worth its salt should be. I knew everything. And of course it wasn’t anything I’d never done before. So I followed the mark into this bar—a real shithole, had to be to serve in the middle of the day—and I pulled up a chair, and I started the script, and then—“ Kepler tilted his head, like he was planning this, too, trying to find the right words, the right inflection. The only substantial light came from the sliding glass door, yards away; it put his face in shadow, but the look on it was still so clear.

“No,” whispered Jacobi, because this story was starting to sound too similar to his own. 

“—and then you looked at me, and I heard your voice up close, and I don’t remember exactly what you said, I was too focused on the mission, but. I remember thinking, _That’s about the only voice I’ve ever heard that I wouldn’t mind hearing forever_. And I didn’t know it then, but I’ve been told since that that’s what it’s like when, well. You know.” 

Jacobi, unfortunately, knew.

“I don’t like this story,” he said. Only most of him meant it. The rest purred and sang and glowed. “It doesn’t have your usual flair. Lacks believability."

“I don’t like it, either. Why do you think I’ve never told it before?” Kepler shrugged, _what-can-you-do?_

“I dunno, because you wanted to save it for when you looked all dramatic in this lighting?” 

“What’s a good story without a little dramatics?”

“That _one_ sentence explains way more about you than literal years of working with you ever could.”

“Ha.” 

Jacobi could feel his breath on his cheek. He didn’t know when they’d gotten so close. He didn’t know why he didn’t mind. Gently, hesitantly, he rested his forehead on Kepler’s, and closed his eyes. 

Breathing was easy, now.

The warmth of Kepler’s hand was back again, this time on Jacobi’s neck, and Jacobi’s own hands moved of their own accord to the sides of Kepler’s face, feeling the rough stubble under his fingertips, the smooth cheekbones beneath his thumbs, and past that, if he focused, the blood beneath the skin, the bone beneath that. 

After so long, to touch like this, to breathe together, Jacobi figured it must be what God was. 

The barest brush of lips on Jacobi’s mouth, though off-center, and quickly gone (God couldn’t go around giving up all his secrets). A sigh. 

“Cutter doesn’t like that story, either,” said Kepler, and ah. There it was. The caveat. The real reason they couldn’t do this. Never mind their own fucked up ways of looking at feelings, at each other’s feelings—even if they could by some miracle get past all that, there was another wall, higher, more lethally enforced. 

Jacobi let himself slip out of Kepler’s grasp, brought his hands back to himself. “Right,” he said. “Well. That was…” He made a broad gesture. “ _Was_. So now, we never talk about it, huh?” 

“We never talked about it in the first place,” Kepler assured him, already on his feet. But he held out a hand to help Jacobi up, and sure, it was cheesy, and stupid, but their palms fit perfectly together. 

Until Jacobi shoved his hands into his pockets, and Kepler turned his back on him to collect the whiskey from the table. And it was back to business as usual. Pent up emotions, don’t-ask-don’t-tell. Just the way they’d always practiced. And it would be that way, Jacobi knew; it’d be that way for the rest of the night, and it’d be that way when they got into the office tomorrow, and it’d be that way pretty much as long as they lived (which, given their general circumstances and fluctuations in luck, could be days, could be eons). 

Except. 

“Hey,” said Jacobi, as they went inside and Kepler closed the sliding door. “Not to pry, but I heard from a reliable source that you and Rachel Young sometimes put a few hours in together on the weekends.” 

Kepler blinked very many times, and opened his mouth with intent to kill. Jacobi held up his hands. 

“Don’t worry, I know it’s purely academic, sir!” he said, innocently. “I was just wondering, if maybe once in a while, you and I could do some professional development of our own. Don’t you think that’d be beneficial in improving our use to the company? I don’t know about you, but good old Goddard’s done an awful lot for me, and I’d love to give back in any way I can—“  


“Jacobi,” Kepler interrupted. Alright, _maybe_ Jacobi had gone a little too far. Note to self: three AM was the worst time to receive the blunt force trauma face. “Go to sleep.” 

Jacobi cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” 

As he left for the living room, where Maxwell sprawled on the couch drooling into a pillow, he thought he felt Kepler’s eyes on the back of his head before the bedroom door clicked shut.

So it was a hard _maybe_ , then.

 

“They can’t _both_ be sick,” Young accused over the phone. Jacobi could just hear it, the hand on the hip, the skeptical eyebrow, the high heeled shoes. 

“I’m afraid they are,” he said, solemnly. In the other room, someone coughed, pitifully. Perfect dramatic timing; had to be Kepler. “It’s my fault. I can’t stress enough how awfully sorry I am, Miss Young. Mr. Cutter, sir.” 

“Oh, it’s no worries, Daniel.” God, the smile was even bigger over the phone. “Those two worked so hard this week, without you. I’m sure it all just caught up to them! Poor little things.”

“Um.” Jesus, what the hell was he supposed to say to _that?_ “Yeah. Sir.”

“The Major hasn’t had a real day off in—gosh, how long’s it been, Rachael?”

“A month.”

“A whole _month_. I bet a little flu will do him wonders. Don’t you, Daniel?”

“Absolutely,” said Jacobi, thinking back on the wonders the flu had done him with horror.  


“Ab-so-lute-ly,” Cutter sighed, joyously. “You just let them know that all their work will be waiting for them when they get back. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll be glad to pick up their slack, right, Daniel? Especially in light of your _own_ recent time off.”

“Of… course, sir.”

“Of _course_ ,” Cutter parroted. “Well! It was great talking to you, Daniel, thanks for phoning in. If that’s all, I’ll be seeing you bright and early!” A pause. “ _If_ that’s _all_.”

“That’s… all, sir?” Jacobi said. Oh, no. Ohhh no. 

“Ya sure? No… _stories_ you have for me?” 

_Oh God No._

“No, sir, I’m afraid not.”

“Mm,” Cutter sighed. “How disappointing.” The smile was, horrendously, gone from his voice, then just as horrendously back again. “Well! Goodbye, Daniel!”

“Bye, sir.” 

Click.

Jacobi banged his head on the doorframe, squeezed his eyes shut, and groaned. 

If only the flu had killed him.

A bout of ugly wretching came from Kepler’s living room, or, as Jacobi now liked to call it, the Sick Babies Room, and Jacobi groaned again. 

Scratch the flu. What Jacobi wouldn’t give for that bomb. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all, folks!! thank you so much to everyone who's followed along on this fic, especially to you fine folks in the comments section who've seriously made this thing possible. i don't think i would've had it in me to do something this long without you. thanks also to the original prompters ! y'all rock. i had a blast writing this, and i hope everyone enjoyed this.
> 
> if you like my writing, you can (of course) read more of my stuff here on ao3 or follow me on tumblr @bacchusofficial!
> 
> if you REALLY like my writing, you can [check out my webseries on tapas](https://tapas.io/series/Gilmores-Ghost-Log), Gilmore's Ghost Log. it's a biweekly look into the case files of paranormal detective and professional rambler g. gilmore. (what does the g stand for? it's a secret!)
> 
> thanks again everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from the name of the video game of course bc i couldn't resist. (it'll make more sense later)


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